Thursday 28 July 2005

Sod's Law and Its Corollary

The first corollary of Sod's Law says: "Anything that is to go wrong will do so at the worst possible moment."

There is nothing truer.

My computer started playing up today, of all days! This is my busiest period of the year and I have a deadline on Monday and then another few thousand words to translate for later. I'd been hibernating for the past three days in order to meet that deadline and today I was going to work as much as I could.

So, of course, I couldn't, because my computer suddenly refused to work properly and threatened to just die, and I had to go to the store and buy a laptop, in a hurry (I will need to buy a new PC a bit later, when mine stops working altogether, which shouldn't be long now, but I will then have the laptop and won't panic so much, well, that's the idea anyway).

I brought the new machine (another b***** machine!) home and had to spend hours setting it up; installing the software I need, creating an Internet connection and what not, and now I'm too mentally drained to do one jot of work.

I've lost an entire day. If I'm lucky I might be able to resume working tomorrow, several hundred pounds sterling lighter. The things one has to do to just stand still! I remember a time- not so long ago really - when I used to write my first drafts in longhand; now when that machine collapses my entire life does too.

A slap to my PC, which couldn't wait another few weeks before scaring me like that. I thought it was my "fwiend".

9 comments:

  1. You really don't want any sappy salve comments right now ... all I can say is that this freelancer knows the terror an acting-up computer can provide ... and I am so glad you have a reliable laptop now. xoxoxoxo

    ReplyDelete
  2. aaaak! i well recognize that panic - damn Bill Gates for making us all so dependent!

    ReplyDelete
  3. BTW - Sod's Law? is that the same as Murphy's Law?

    ReplyDelete
  4. I'm so in two minds about that: I adore being able to use a computer; I love the Internet and what it enables me to do. But, that dependence drives me nuts: early on, I believed I could never think properly if I couldn't feel the pen in my hand, now I can't think unless my hands are on the keyboard. My handwriting has deteriorated so much I can hardly recognize it and I can't actually hold a pen for more than a few minutes at a time.

    Yes, Sod's Law = Murphy's Law = Aggro.

    ReplyDelete
  5. My sympathies to you. I live in fear that my (very old but quite fast) computer will die suddenly. Our house has been hit by lightning twice (what law is that, LOL?) so I don't even dare use it when it rains.

    Pens are useless for anything other than grocery lists.

    ReplyDelete
  6. When all your deadlines are over, you may want to rent season 4 of sex and the city (if you haven't already seen it). Carrie finds herself in the same predicament, and all she receives is cenusre from her friends because she didn't zip drive. Slap to all those who do that to you when you're in a pickle-think sypmathy, not censure!!!!!!!
    Carole

    ReplyDelete
  7. I still love pens and old-fashioned stationery, but you're right, R, they're all useless now.

    I have seen the whole of SATC, C (came to it very late, but saw all the repeats). I don't remember that particular episode. My work was backed up; I just didn't have anothe machine to read the disk. Now I do! Hooray!

    ReplyDelete
  8. My PC is exactly three years old (got it on Aug 1st 2002), which is, as you say N, ancient. All machines have built-in obsolescence these days, and their lifespan is getting shorter and shorter.

    I got the cheapest laptop I could find, because I will be getting a new desktop one soon: I can't work on a laptop all the time). It's a Patriot (no idea what that is) and it was really cheap. It's a lovely machine, which comes with absolutely no instructions whatsoever, so there are still some little icons that are puzzling me. When I've finished my work I will press on those keys and see what happens. LOL!

    These days machines come loaded with Windows only so I had to buy a copy of Word, and here I have to praise (OMG!) Nabille, the sales assistant at PC World, who saved me £290 (is that all?), by suggesting I didn't get the copy I was holding in my hand, but a slightly older one. He was brilliant. :-)

    ReplyDelete
  9. Three cheers for Nabille.

    Is there a person alive who doesn't have a computer horror story? I'm a book editor, and the only thing that used to make my in-house job hell was inadequate machinery and no tech support. Job would have been fine otherwise.

    ReplyDelete

Note: only a member of this blog may post a comment.